The Israeli forces have initiated a military plan to capture and control 25 per cent of Gaza, calling it the buffer zone that it has been creating since the onset of its military operations on October 7, 2023.
The buffer zone is an area about one-kilometre wide, or more in some places, adjacent to Israeli territory and it has been flattening all structures in this area, including residential homes and civilian infrastructure.
The Zionists claim they are eliminating any potential threats to Israeli ground troops operating in the eastern parts of the Gaza Strip, but many Palestinians believe this is only the beginning of the plan to carry out mass displacement of the population of the entire Gaza Strip into Egypt.
This is something that has been heard repeatedly from the Israeli prime minister and has been supported by the US.
The scope of these operations are concentrated in Rafah, the eastern part of Khan Younis and the central areas, as well as all border towns and villages located in northern Gaza.
Two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike in the Khirbet al-Adas and Musbah areas north of Rafah on Tuesday night.
Rafah – Gaza’s southernmost city – has been the focus of Israel’s intensified attacks along with some parts of Khan Younis.
The most recent air strikes and ground assault began when Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, killing at least 1,042 Palestinians since it restarted the war.
Tahani Mustafa, from the International Crisis Group, says most analysts aren’t surprised Israel has expanded its military assault to seize more land in Gaza and ‘depopulate’ Palestinians from the territory.
‘Many of us anticipated these evacuation zones were going to be expanded in the coming weeks and months in order to concentrate Palestinian populations into these so-called ‘safe zones’, which we know over the last 17 months of open warfare that there is no such thing as safe zones,’ Mustafa said.
Israel’s ‘expansionist government’ filled with politicians from the far right is now fully backed by the US government of Donald Trump, she noted.
‘(The US) really doesn’t see the need to deal with the facade of trying to broker any sort of rhetorical peace here, or try to pretend to be an impartial broker in this conflict. The Trump administration itself has already hailed the depopulation of Gaza.’
The US attitude gives Israel ‘the complete green light now to act with impunity’, said Mustafa.
The Israeli military has issued forced displacement notices for all areas of Rafah and is now expanding its ground operation to control the entire city.
They say that this operation aims to compel Hamas to reach a ceasefire deal and release the Israeli captives.
The Israeli defence minister declared that this operation is not just about maximising pressure on Hamas, but also on Gaza’s population in order to force them to eliminate Hamas.
Now, people were given a very short time to leave.
They are being forced to flee, taking what little they can find of their personal belongings and moving again to al-Mawasi. That is a 14km strip of land, which is now overcrowded and which has been repeatedly targeted by the Israeli forces.
Rafah has been the focus of Israel’s latest attacks, alongside some parts of Khan Younis.
One of the attacks there targeted a residential building packed full of civilians. Palestinian Civil Defence says 15 Palestinians were killed in that strike and that the morgues of both the Nasser Hospital and the European Hospital are overwhelmed with bodies.
Hamas says Gaza has reached a ‘famine phase’ describing it as ‘one of the worst humanitarian crises in modern history’.
Israel bears full responsibility for the ‘catastrophic human consequences increasing by the hour’, the group added.
No food, water, fuel or medicine has entered the Strip since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2nd.
The United Nations on Tuesday dismissed as ‘ridiculous’ an assertion by Israel that there’s enough food in Gaza to last for a long period of time, despite the closure of all 25 bakeries in the enclave supported by the World Food Programme.
Before the ceasefire, global food security experts warned in November there was a ‘strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas’ of northern Gaza.
Israel has intensified its air strikes throughout Gaza since breaking the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18th. At least 1,042 Palestinians have been killed since it restarted the war.
Israel’s 18-month war on Gaza has levelled much of the enclave reducing homes, hospitals and schools to rubble.
According to the latest Health Ministry death toll, at least 50,399 people have been killed in Gaza – the majority children, women and the elderly – since the attack began in October 2023.
At least 21 people were killed across Gaza in Israeli attacks since dawn on Wednesday, in central and southern Gaza, medical sources said midmorning.
In one of the deadliest strikes, Israeli forces targeted a house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, killing at least 12 Palestinians.
Two others were killed in an Israeli attack in the northeastern area of Rafah, where the Israeli military announced it’s carrying out a widespread assault to seize ‘large areas’.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum denounced Israel’s expansion of the offensive in Gaza.
In a statement, it said families of the captives remaining in Gaza were ‘horrified’ to wake up to the defence minister’s announcement that the military is stepping up its military operations in the Palestinian enclave in order to seize more territory there.
‘Has it been decided to sacrifice the hostages for the sake of ‘territorial gains?’ the group asked.
‘Instead of securing the release of the hostages through a deal and ending the war, the Israeli government is sending more soldiers into Gaza to fight in the same areas where battles have already taken place repeatedly,’ it added.
‘The responsibility for the release of the 59 hostages held by Hamas lies with the Israeli government.
‘Our grave concern is that this mission has been pushed to the bottom of its priorities and has become merely a secondary objective.’
The Israeli prime minister – who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Gaza – arrived in Hungary yesterday on the invitation of his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban.
Amnesty International’s secretary-general says Hungary, which is a member of the ICC, has ‘an unequivocal obligation to arrest and surrender’ Netanyahu to the court if he is within its jurisdiction.
She also called on the ICC’s legislative body, known as the Assembly of States Parties, to ‘urgently and publicly call on Hungary either to rescind its invitation to Netanyahu or to immediately arrest and surrender him, should he set foot in the country’.
She added: ‘The imminent travel of Benjamin Netanyahu to Hungary, or any possibility of an impunity tour cannot be marked by silence or inaction by the Assembly and individual ICC states parties.’
The statement from the UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) comes after Israeli forces issued new displacement notices for nearly all residents of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza.
‘Tens of thousands of civilians are fleeing Rafah under gunfire,’ the agency said in a post on X.
‘Gaza continues to be one of the most dangerous places in the world.’
The post was accompanied by a video of the moment a UN team saw Israeli forces shooting fleeing civilians in the Tal al-Sultan area in Rafah, as well as testimonies from Palestinian civilians.
‘They shot at us,’ one elderly man said. ‘Some were injured and screaming but I couldn’t look back out of fear.’
‘I had nothing with me,’ one woman said. ‘We left and climbed the sand dunes. We walked on. When I escaped, the tanks burned tents along the road.’
